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In this important new volume, William Stacy Johnson, a lawyer and a chaired theology professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, provides a detailed and helpful typology of seven positions on same-sex relationships at work in American churches. These range from the 'non-affirming' positions of (1) prohibition, (2) toleration and (3) accommodation, to the 'affirming' positions of (4) legitimation, (5) celebration, (6) liberation and (7) consecration.
Johnson is evidently a new and fervent 'affirmationist' and he wants fellow Christians and citizens to join him in the ascent to position number seven - where churches 'consecrate' same-sex relationships just as states legalise them. Believing that he has stood too long on the legal and theological sidelines of the same-sex debate, Johnson has entered the fray with this substantial new book, swinging deftly with his left: 'I believe the time has come to offer my strongest support to gay and lesbian couples who are seeking to make a life together', he writes. 'A welcoming and affirming stance, I believe, is vital to the integrity of our religious communities, imperative for the self-consistency of our legal system and necessary to the long-term well-being of our democratic culture' (p. 3).
Johnson knows he's fighting majority opinion in American churches and states. The numbers in the churches are stacking up against him even more than at the time his book was written. According to a detailed August 2007 study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 73 percent of American with high religious commitments oppose same-sex marriage and marriage-like arrangements - and within this group, 81 percent of white Evangelicals, 78 percent of all Catholics and 64 percent of all African-Americans of all denominations are opposed. The numbers are a bit better among the states. Massachusetts and California offer traditional marriage and same-sex marriage to their citizens. Five offer straight couples marriage and gay couples civil union. Six states, including California, offer domestic partner registration status, providing straight and gay couples with some of the same benefits and protections of marriage. The remaining thirty-eight states are opposed to legalising same-sex relationships and most of these have recently passed constitutional amendments or statutes restricting marriage to heterosexual monogamous unions between fit adults.
Johnson...